Reform of counselling rules ‘key to education equality’

THE education gap between rich and poor could be narrowed if the assessment of schools’ needs for guidance counsellors was overhauled, an expert has said.

A guidance teacher at a secondary school with between 250 and 500 students must spend 11 hours teaching in the classroom or two hours more if the roll is smaller.

President of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors Brian Mooney compared the situation to telling a hospital doctor they can only see patients half the week and spend the rest washing the floor.

“Guidance teachers are not allowed do what they should be doing, but a school’s allocation of teachers should be shaped on the needs of the kids, not on their numbers,” he said.

“People without wealth are being punished by the reduction of resources in their schools, while the rich transfer their kids to the fee-paying schools with growing numbers and more counselling staff,” said Mr Mooney.

Figures published this week show that increasing numbers of students attending fee-paying schools are eating into the numbers at schools where fees are not paid.

The helpline run by the institute for the National Parents Council (Post Primary) around the CAO college offers in August found that hundreds of students knew little or nothing about courses they had picked, mainly due to lack of access to their guidance counsellors.

A report on staffing for second-level schools last year recommended there be one counsellor for every 400 students.

The ratio was one full-time guidance counsellors for every 250 students up to 1983, when the figure was doubled as part of a series of education cutbacks.

Fine Gael’s education spokesperson Olwyn Enright said there was further irony in the fact that there were far fewer third-level colleges for students to choose course at that time.

“The career guidance teacher is so important in young people’s lives but they are under-resourced and under-funded,” she said.